Real, pressing agenda for building New Nepal

The revolution in Nepal has only paved the way for the more challenging task of creating the preconditions for socio-economic reconstruction.

Solving the problems of absolute and relative poverty as well as youth unemployment and underemployment is certainly pressing and the overcoming the high rate of illiteracy, superstitious fatalism and poor healthcare among a large segment of the poor and disempowered masses, especially children in rural areas, is also very important.

The armed struggle against feudal dictatorship has ended and the Nepali communists have joined the interim government led by PM Girija Prasad Koirala. New tasks are ahead and new political skills are certainly required to consolidate peace and enlarge the realm of freedom for the people of Nepal. Warm regards and best wishes from a Malaysian friend.

click : Sahana Pradhan becomes 1st woman Foreign Minister of Nepal

Two news items from the BBC and CNN respectively on the latest political development and progress of national reconciliation in Nepal has attracted my attention. I visited the country's capital Kathmandu before for a week in 1993 and I met many of its then mainstream politicians and political activists on the Left, both the soft and hard types.